


all you have

by sparxwrites



Series: Critical Role hc_bingo [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blood, Body Horror, Monsters, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Prayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 06:32:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8002066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Please,</i> prays Vax, silently, knelt by the edge of his bed with his hands clasped around a vial of blood, on the eve of their fight with Thordak. <i>Please. Raven Queen. Hear my prayer and answer me.</i></p><p>(In which Vax learns the dangers of answered prayers, and a deity who listens.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	all you have

_Please_ , prays Vax, silently, knelt by the edge of his bed with his hands clasped around a vial of blood, on the eve of their fight with Thordak. _Please. Raven Queen. Hear my prayer and answer me_.

There’s only silence, but that’s all there ever is. Vax knows his Goddess’ presence by the sudden weight in the room, by the prickle on the back of his neck that tells him he’s being watched, and by the soft brush of feathers against exposed skin. Not by Her voice.

“If this- if this is where I die, I do not run from it,” he says, eventually – aloud, this time, words shattering the stillness of the room as they echo off the bare stone walls. “I will not- _cannot_ run from You. If this is to be where- where the others die… where my _sister_ -” He breaks off, words strangling in his throat. There are some things he cannot say, some things too awful to give voice to.

“I cannot run from You, and I will not ask anyone else to, either,” he decides on, head bowed, eyes closed to keep the glittering tears that bead on his eyelashes from falling. “But- but if this is _not_ fate, if I- if we- if _some_ of us aren’t destined to die here, if some of us can survive, then _please_. Please, be with me, and- and give me the strength to protect them. To save them. Even if I can’t, then still, please- give me the strength to do what I _must_.”

Feathers brush against the back of his neck, again, unbearably soft against the strip of bare skin below his hairline. It makes him shudder, twitch with the prickles that run down his spine and spit sparks of heat into his stomach, and he exhales unevenly as the very blood beneath his skin warms for a second. Communion with his Goddess is always like this – warm and one-sided and unnerving. Something precious and holy, that unsettles him all the way down to the bone.

“Thank you,” he breathes, pressing his forehead against the soft edge of his mattress, clutching the vial of blood tighter in his hands. “ _Thank you_.” He has no idea if She will answer his prayer, if She will offer help or comfort or wisdom, but She has heard it. Sometimes just that, just knowing She is listening and he’s not just howling his fears into an empty, uncaring void, is enough.

When the feathers against his neck don’t retreat, he frowns, shifting. “Is there something-?” he asks, raising his head and opening his eyes to blink away the wetness there. “Do You need me?” The room resolves itself into smears of grey stone, empty, even when he turns around to look behind him. No Goddess, no ravens, not a living soul other than himself. The feathers against the back of his neck, though, do not move – despite the fact there’s nothing there when he reaches up, his fingers slipping against air and smooth skin.

Even as he frowns, the heat in his blood rises. The prickle, he’s used to, just a sign of Her touch in his veins, a promise that his time on this earth is not yet done – but it _rises,_ warmer and warmer, until it’s an itch- until it’s pain- until it’s _boiling_ -

“What-” he gasps out, recoiling, tugging at his clothing where the lightest touch of it against his skin is like a poison-plant rash. Everything feels too-warm, oversensitive, and he’s wrestling with his tunic to try and drag it over his head on instinct, just to get it _off his skin_.

The boiling of his blood reaches unbearable levels, and the vial drops from nerveless fingers to smash against the stone, and Vax feels something _move_ inside of him. It’s unnatural, sickening, the slither of moving flesh against shuddering bone.

There’s only the briefest of moments for him to feel sick horror at the sensation, before the pain overtakes him.

He collapses against the floor, back bowed and fingers clawed against the stone, forehead pressed to the coolness of it, and fights the urge to scream because _Goddess._ Goddess, this is not what he wanted – strength, yes, but not _this_ , not the strange shifting and warping of his body, not this change, not this _agony_. He doesn’t know what’s happening, doesn’t know what she’s done, knows only that this is mostly definitely her because through it all he can still feel the thrice-damned _feathers_ against his skin.

Something in his back _crunches_ , spine clicking and shoulder blades grinding to accommodate whatever it is he can feel growing beneath the skin there, and he cannot help but _howl_.

It’s loud enough that the others must have heard, he knows, must be running for his room even as the last of his energy leaves him and he tips over from his elbows and knees to his side, sprawled panting and crying out against the floor. The stone beneath his fingers is slick, he realises suddenly, slick and warm and slippery. Coated in blood.

He can barely catch his breath, now, through the pressure the strange distention of his back is putting on his ribcage. It hitches in his chest, uneven, his cries coming out strangled-wheezing despite how loud they ring inside his own head. “Goddess-” he forces out, the words thin and choking in his crushed lungs. “Goddess, _please-_ ”

When his back finally cracks open, flesh tearing and ripping wetly, like damp paper, he loses a long minute in the white-hot agony of it. Everything narrows down to _pain_ , pain and the sensation of something forcing its way out of him, dragging itself free in impossible, unholy inches.

It’s too much to even scream through it, too much to do anything other than lay there and _shake_ , limp and senseless, until the blood-slick wings are finally free. They’re featherless, chilled against the stone floor after the warmth of his insides. When breath and sense finally return to him, he sobs, ragged and broken, because it’s all he can do. Because he has no more words, no way to process the feel of skin and fat and muscle stripped open from shoulder to waist to expose the rawness beneath.

The transformation, though, is not yet complete. Even as he catches his breath, gasping quiet moans into the stillness of the room, he feels the heat rise again. Feels his body begin to twist and coil, as if his insides have turned to fire-hot snakes.

 _You asked for my help_ , whispers the Raven Queen, finally, breaking Her silence as his feet reform themselves, bone crunching and breaking and reforming. This time, he still has the breath to scream, and he does so – screams and screams and _screams_ until his throat is raw and bloody.

When he kicks at the floor in desperate pain, it is no longer skin scraping and bruising against unforgiving stone, but iron-hard talons digging gouges through it. When he claws desperately at his skull, dark hair comes out in bloodied clumps, tangling around fingers turning long and aching and eagle-sharp. _You asked for strength, my Champion_ , whispers his Goddess in his ear, quiet and unmoved. _With this, you will have strength enough to protect your friends. This is my gift_.

If he had any voice left, he would be cursing Her, would be begging for Her to change him back, pleading for an end to the pain that has become his whole, drowning world and turned his vision to a pulsing tunnel of black and red. As it is, he can make no more sound than a hoarse whimper, a broken keen that strangles itself in the white-hot agony of his ribcage.

By the time the rest of Vox Machina reach him, weapons drawn and hands glowing with summoned magic, it is too late. The thing curled on the floor, reborn into the word in a pool of its own slick blood under the soft, guiding hand of the Raven Queen, is no longer Vax. It is a monster, all taloned feet and powerful wings and onyx-black eyes, its long hair fallen out in bloody clumps to be replaced by tiny pinfeathers, its fingernails exchanged for bladed claws sharper than any dagger.

As the monster blinks blearily up at its sister, at the rest of its family behind her – at the horror on their faces at the price it has paid for the strength to keep them safe – Vax thinks that, perhaps, it was not too high a price to pay.

**Author's Note:**

> for the “unwanted transformation” square on my hc_bingo card. this whole thing was an exercise in me rubbing my grubby body-horror-loving hands together in glee tbh...
> 
> you can find me @sparxwrites on tumblr, if you want.


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